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Fractal Innovation

The Chairman of IFI Advisory Board, José Manuel Leceta connects in his latest book the innovation with the fractals that are mathematical objects present in nature. Halfway between art and science, they describe complexity with simplicity, knowing the underlying pattern that is reproduced at different levels.

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Successful innovation must also be simple, although it is not always simple. What if, as with fractals, there are underlying structures that reproduce at different levels? In essence, that is the thesis of his book ‘ Fractal Innovation’. And for this, he defends that innovating is betting on people; that entrepreneurship is a contact sport and that, like life, innovative entrepreneurship is a journey. This work is an original reflection on a complex phenomenon, from the conviction that those who understand the dynamics of change that induce innovation and entrepreneurship will be in a better position to understand the world a little better.

The book available

Innovación Fractal (amazon.com)

Task force to address water scarcity in Southern Europe

The CEO of Insight Foresight Institute, Totti Könnölä, participates in the task force of EIT-KICs (Climate-KIC, EIT Food, EIT Manufacturing, EIT RawMaterials). This Body of Knowledge works on finding innovative solutions for water scarcity in Southern Europe.

Water plays a central role in how societies mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. A holistic approach considering water, the biosphere, and the anthroposphere is required to provide sustainable agricultural and economic systems that will allow us to decelerate climate change, protect us from extreme events and adapt to the unavoidable at the same time.

Main problems to tackle:

  • mitigating water scarcity and drought situations,
  • reducing the over usage of water,
  • wasting less water with the existing resources

In order to have a wide representation of knowledge, representatives from different sectors, including policy, industry, civil society and research and innovation participate in the process to support in the knowledge sharing and through innovation across the South of Europe.

Advise to Andalusia in the industrial transition towards carbon neutrality

The CEO of IFI, Totti Könnölä advises the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in its work to support the Andalusian Government to create industrial transition towards carbon neutrality. Within the frame of the project RIS3 Support to Lagging Regions, the JRC has launched a Working Group on Understanding and Managing Industrial Transitions. 

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The Working Group aims to support regional (and where appropriate national) authorities facing major industrial transitions, away from declining sectors and activities and charting actionable paths towards employment-intensive economic growth. The Working Group comprises of JRC staff, an Advisory Board and external experts engaged in reviews of industrial transition, coordinated by Ken Guy (Advisory Board Member of IFI).

The core activity of the Working Group are the reviews of industrial transition following a common methodology (POINT, Projecting Opportunities for INdustrial Transition) that draws on expertise on system innovation/transition management, foresight, industrial policy and innovation governance.

The reviews focus on an industrial theme of growing global importance suggested by the relevant territorial authorities (for instance, but not confined to: climate change, electrification of transport, circular economy, digitalisation, artificial intelligence) to collect evidence and examine the scope for developing adequate territorial responses that harness cross-portfolio complementarities (e.g. between ministries and between levels of governance) and cross-stakeholder coordination (e.g. between businesses and broad constituencies of consumers/users). In each territory under review and for an industrial theme suggested by the authorities the final report will:

(a) Map the affected orientation, resource mobilisation, production and consumption systems in the territory;

(b) Document existing planning arrangements and directions of deliberate change (e.g. as described in thematic policy and business strategies, or evident in momentum-gathering social concerns and movements, consumer trends,  common territorial values etc.) of various stakeholders in the affected systems that could later form the basis for a broadly-supported transition vision;

(c) Make concrete suggestions for the advancement of the transition and for managing its downsides. Given the nature and magnitude of the transition challenge, adequate territorial responses will include not just research and innovation policies that are already part of RIS3, but also industrial and employment policies more generally, including provisions for education and skills, for complementary large public infrastructures (e.g. in energy, transport, waste), urban planning, fiscal policy and social security reform, among others. Therefore the recommendations of the review will place a particular emphasis on fostering alignment and coordination within government.

The reviews aim to build the evidence base for appropriate “Actions to Manage Industrial Transitions”, as stipulated in fulfilment criterion No.6 of the enabling condition of good governance foreseen in the next multi-annual financing period of the EU Structural Funds (without prejudice to the final decision of the European Commission). The reviews can further inform RIS3 design and implementation (e.g. refining or extending priorities, broadening the EDP, fostering synergies with other funding streams) as well as informing, and been informed by, industrial policies and other territorial strategies for economic and social development. More broadly, it is hoped that the reviews can be an input to a participatory process of stakeholder engagement leading to the development of credible positive visions for the future that can be the source of pride and inspiration for the region (or country) and a rallying point for the mobilisation of actors and resources from all levels. 

The JRC plans to complete three such reviews (Andalucía, Bulgaria and Greece) in the current phase of the project in 2020.

For more information

Working Group on Understanding and Managing Industrial Transitions 

Manuel de la Rocha Vázquez (ES)

Manuel de la Rocha Vázquez was born in Madrid in 1972. Currently, he works as Financial Advice Deputy Director in ‘ICEX Exportaciones e Inversión’. Master´s degree in Business Management from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (1995), Master in Iberoamerican Higher Education form Universidad Complutense de Madrid (1996) and Master in Economic Policy from the Columbia University in New York (2000). Manuel has worked for several international organisations, like the European Commission and the African Development Bank or the World Bank, among others in the office of Nairobi, Kenya. Between 2007 and 2010 he was adviser of the Development Policy Director of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Spain. Later on, he was adviser of Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo (AECID) and he worked as Senior Financial Analist in ‘España Expansión Exterior’. In 2014 he went into politics and was named Secretary of Economics of PSOE, position that held until October 2016. He regularly cooperate with the ‘Fundación Alternativas’ and with Universidad Internacional de la Rioja (UNIR) and is founding member of Asociación de Economistas Frente a la Crisis. Manuel has published numerous articles and reports about economy and international commerce, global governance, development policies or the euro crisis.

Innovation, purchases and employment

Juan Mulet, the member of IFI Innovation Council writes in Cinco Dias, one of the leading economic daily papers in Spain on how innovation, purchase and employment are, or should be, connected.

The 1987 Nobel Prize for Economics, Robert Solow, proved that the four fifths of the United States economic growth of the first half of the past century, were the consequence of having improved the way in which the production factors were combined. Back in the days it was called a technical change, nowadays we would call it “innovation in its broadest sense”, or, as the economist prefer “total productivity of the factors” (TPF). Only the remaining fifth of the mentioned growth, was attributable to the increase in the use of capital and labour. According to the OECD, between 1985 and 2010, the contribution to the (TPF) to the GDP growth between 1985 and 2010 was of 72% in Germany, of 63% in South Korea and a 52% in France. This percentage represented only a 13% in Spain. It is obvious that our economy hasn´t experience the improvement in the use of capital and labour, one of its main ways and opportunities to grow…

Read the full article in Spanish.

image©cincodias

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